A front part structure of a vehicle body is known (as disclosed, for example, in Patent Document 1), which includes front side frames disposed on opposite sides of the vehicle body, a cross member extending between front ends of the front side frames, and an impact absorbing box mounted on a front surface of the cross member. According to the vehicle body front part structure disclosed in Patent Document 1, when a load (impact load) is applied to the impact absorbing box from the front of the vehicle body, the impact absorbing box undergoes compressive deformation (collapsing deformation) to thereby absorb the impact load.
In the vehicle body front part structure disclosed in Patent Document 1, the cross member is disposed to extend between the front ends of the front side frames disposed on the opposite sides of the vehicle body, so that the cross member is located forward of an engine room. With the impact absorbing box (impact absorbing member) being mounted on the front surface of the cross member, a distance from the engine room to a front end of the impact absorbing box and hence a front end of the vehicle body is inevitably increased, which has been a hindrance of size reduction of the vehicle.